06 December 2011

Tuesday Crustie: Dance

My confusion about this is that the paper announcing the discovery of this species, Kiwa puravida, and the news articles following it, refer to this as a “yeti crab.”

But the group this species belongs to, Galatheoidea, is normally referred to as “squat lobsters.” Thanks, English, for the reminder of why we scientists ended up using Latin for species names.

The paper describing this species also has a lot of cool stuff on how this beastie is farming bacteria on its hairy claws. Cool! And even cooler is the behaviour K. puravida uses to keep their bacteria happy: